


Quotable

by AntiKryptonite



Category: Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:05:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 21,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7244269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntiKryptonite/pseuds/AntiKryptonite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A phrase, a question, a statement, a throwaway reply - these can all betray our innermost thoughts. A selection of single lines of dialogue from each episode, seconds in time that show what's beneath the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pilot: Jonathan Kent

**Author's Note:**

> Every time I watch this series, I see so many little moments that have so much meaning to them, but let's face it, there's no way I'll ever have time to write something exploring them all. So here's my compromise -- taking one moment out of each episode and delving into it just for a bit. Brevity REALLY isn't my thing, though, so we'll see how it goes! Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: Each quote is taken from episodes written by others -- they don't belong to me, and no copyright infringement is intended.

You stand there, straight and tall, not quite sure where or how to put your arms in the outlandish costume Martha came up with (and really, I should have known that whatever her ‘artistic’ mind produced would be this strange and colorful), and I can tell that you’re scared and nervous and unsure. But still you stand there and ask me what I think.

You’re always a little scared, always just that bit off-balance, a step behind everyone else. I know that’s partly my fault, but you were _mine_ , Clark, _ours_ , and I couldn’t risk that, couldn’t ever let someone come and take you away from us. So, yeah, maybe I overdid the dissection bit and maybe I told you too many times to be careful about how much you let show in front of others, but I hope you know that I’ve always been proud of you.

Because you’re standing here in our living room in a farm in Kansas (and much as I love it, I know that it’s not exactly what most people would call desirable), and you’re dressed in an outfit that very obviously makes you uncomfortable, and you’re ready and waiting to put your life on the line.

And all to help others.

I know I haven’t been the best dad there ever was. I know that I’ve made mistakes. But in this moment, looking there at you, I feel so incredibly proud. Of you—and a little bit of me. Because for all the mistakes I made, I did something right. Your sense of right and wrong, your strong integrity, they were yours, but I didn’t stamp them out, didn’t teach you to ignore them, and maybe I even helped you develop them a bit. And you’re trying to help and you’re selfless and good, and I know all parents think their own children are the best, but I’m pretty sure that I have more reason than most.

You were put in a tiny spaceship and shot away—from another planet or just from somewhere horrible and _wrong_ on this planet. And we found you. Out of all the nights and all the roads, Martha and I were on the right road at the right time to find a tiny little infant who smiled up at us and curled his fingers around my thumb. Sometimes the chance of it all boggles my mind and leaves me standing motionless, trying to wrap my brain around it.

And other times, like now, I just feel my heart swell up with pure gratitude. Because you’re my son—our son—and you’re standing in a costume that will outshine those fancy lit stores in Metropolis, and you’re looking at me all full of fear and hope and nervousness, and I know one way or another you’re going to change the world.

So I smile and I even get out a laugh despite the terror squeezing my insides into shapes much like your mother’s clay when she’s done molding it, and I say, “That’s my boy.”

And you are.


	2. Strange Visitor (From Another Planet): Burton Newcomb

“Sure,” the young reporter says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and I can’t help but frown and pause and look over at him. Not just for interrupting me (youngsters these days just don’t know that they’re supposed to listen to their elders), but also because the response seems a little strange.

“Sure,” he says, and I wonder what kind of life he’s led to make him look as if he really does know what it’s like to have a secret stashed away inside, a secret so big it makes it impossible to talk to anyone or meet anyone new or even walk down the street without looking at everyone and everything suspiciously, warily, as apprehensively as if you are in enemy territory.

This young reporter, this Clark Kent, has an open face, honest and unassuming, but I’ve known soldiers younger than him who looked just as guileless yet have seen war, so maybe it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. But it does. Because he radiates honesty in a way few others can, and even when his partner looks at him in surprised derision, he doesn’t close down, just sputters out some line about sources.

I know what it’s like to have a secret festering inside you. I know what it’s like to hide it from everyone close to you—the lack of a wife or kids or any friends in this house can attest to that. I even know what it’s like to hide a secret behind a façade. So maybe this Kent actually does have a secret.

If so, he’s managed to handle it far better than I could. Or maybe it’s just because he’s young. Life hasn’t had a chance to sink its claws into him yet, hasn’t managed to thoroughly disillusion him and weight him down with all its burdens. As I well know, the world isn’t kind to those who hold secrets, and lies get crueler and harsher the longer they drip out of your mouth. Maybe one day, if he comes back (though considering the secret I’m keeping, I certainly hope he doesn’t have cause to want to talk to me again), I’ll look at him and see the lines etched into his face, the scars drawn by deception and fear.

I hope not. The secrets I keep aren’t worth the lies I told to keep them, that’s for sure. And giving these determined reporters a bit of help, even backhanded help I can’t (or won’t) admit to, isn’t going to make my own burdened past any lighter. But maybe, just maybe, it’ll help this young man realize that secrets always come to light sooner or later, and it’s never in the way you want.

Or maybe he already knows it. Maybe that’s why he can look so hopeful and unaffected by his secret—knowing that one day the secrecy will end might be what allows him to keep that hope shining there behind his thick glasses.

I don’t know. And truthfully, I don’t _want_ to know.

I’ve had enough of secrets—a lifetime and more of secrets I couldn’t stomach even when I thought I was doing the right thing. So I’ll give them my secret and I’ll let them walk away and I’ll hope I never have to see them again.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll learn how to live my life _without_ secrets.


	3. Neverending Battle: Lex Luthor

A weakness. It may not seem like much, my good man (or whatever you are), not after I’ve successfully discovered just how vast and wide-ranging your abilities are, but it is there nonetheless. A chink in red and blue armor that otherwise might be just a bit too invulnerable for my own good. A failing, in actuality, and now you’re no longer intimidating—now you’re just a challenge. A good one, one worthy of a man of my talents and intellect, one that will break the boredom inherent in a life of endless minutiae and the mundane details needed to run an empire, but a challenge just the same.

And you’re new around here, so you might not know, but I never turn down a challenge. And I never lose either. Oh, you might think you’ve caused me some sort of set-back by ignoring my unspoken ultimatum and coming back to blind the world with your flashy powers, but it is always brain that beats brawn, my dear friend, mind over matter, which means I’m not afraid.

No, truthfully, this is a welcome diversion. An interesting test I can use to stretch myself. It was awfully helpful of you to confront me yourself and let me know just whose side you’re on (I might have wasted days or weeks trying to convert you to my employ otherwise), but it was also a gauntlet thrown down at my feet, and now I can use you in my schemes whether you work for me or not.

“Superman has morals,” I tell my manservant, and that is that.

I’ve already won, you see. Once you accept morals, you accept limits, boundaries that you refuse to cross and thus, _cannot_ cross. You wall yourself in behind limits that make you less than you can be, and when there are lines you will not step over, there are victories you will never obtain.

So you may be able to fly from one end of this city to the others, and you may be able to survive the point-blank explosion of a bomb, and you may even be all but invulnerable, but as long as you will come to the pleading call of a victim, as long as you treasure life over power…well, this is a challenge, but it won’t be a contest.

Total power is what you have, my friend, yet you allow yourself to be inhibited, put under the control of what others decree right or wrong. That’s your second mistake (your first, naturally, was setting yourself against me), but I’m reasonably certain it won’t be your last.

Because _I’m_ not inhibited or controlled, and there isn’t a single line that I won’t cross should the occasion warrant it. Ruthless—a good word—and those who are willing to put it all on the line are the ones who eventually walk away with the spoils.

So enjoy your moment of fame. Enjoy the newspaper articles and the keys to the city and the applause of Lois Lane. In the end, it won’t matter, nothing more than a spark in a pan. In the end, you _will_ fall.

And I will be there, savoring my triumph.

That is, after all, what it means to be Lex Luthor.


	4. I'm Looking Through You: Cat Grant

Her eyes are rolling, her mouth is tucked to the side in that thoroughly irritating way she has of showing her disgust with her entire face, and her barb rolls off of me without hurting in the least.

It’s easy to smirk, easy to give her a once-over out of the corner of my eye. Easy to snicker at her and make the tiniest hint of insecurity enter her expression.

“Less is more, darling,” I say, and then I pause (this part is easy, too, so practiced it’s become second-nature), and snicker again, and add, “Sometimes.”

And it is. Usually.

But Lois Lane has something I’ll never have. I’ve been working with her for several years now, always throwing put-downs and come-backs her way, ignoring the taunts she sends out in reply, and yet, I still don’t understand what it is she has that the rest of us don’t.

She stands here, so forlorn and awkward as Superman walks past us. Her disappointment is written all across her, like lipstick applied too liberally and mascara running down pale cheeks. She thinks Superman doesn’t care at all about her, but the truth is, I know he does. He came to _her_ , after all, gave her his first interview. The fact that he’s ignoring her here doesn’t change anything—men like to play their games, to divert attention and distract the eye and play their emotional sleight-of-hand. They accuse women of being the ones to play games and use the art of manipulation, but if the society pages have taught me anything, it’s that everyone, no matter their gender, wears their masks and dangles their shiny jewelry and dark secrets to distract from the vulnerability they all feel.

And I’m no different.

Lois may think I look down on her, but the truth is a bit nastier than that. You see, I’m _jealous_ of her. I’ve worked just as hard as her, for longer than her, but she’s the star reporter, and I’m…well, I’m second-best. Or an afterthought. Invisible whenever she’s around, like a switch that gets flicked.

She’s younger and she’s pretty and she’s ambitious, and she’s chock-full of personality quirks that should send men running for the hills. But there’s that _something_. That _something_ none of the rest of us have.

And everyone knows it.

Superman does. He’s working the room (not as skillfully as Lex Luthor or the other more consummate showmen), always turned toward the woman who won his date—and always, _always_ , where he can see Lois out of the corner of his eye.

Lex Luthor’s seen it. For months, Lois has been hounding his office, trying to get the first one-on-one interview with him (really, sometimes she just sets herself up for failure), but now, one White Orchid Ball and one dance later, _he’s_ the one calling _her_ for meetings and appointments and lunches.

And Clark sees it. One good man—a nice guy, finally, come to work at the Daily Planet—and even before I saw him, he was already Lois’s. He follows her around, watches her constantly, and another, less- _somethinged_ woman can’t even try to change his mind without receiving dirty looks from him and worried glances toward Lois (and okay, so maybe pretending our few hours together hadn’t all been on the up-and-up wasn’t my best idea, but a girl can get frustrated, you know). He’s cute and he’s nice and he smiles and tells me good morning even though I know he’s still upset with me…and none of it matters at all.

Because Lois has more, and less is sometimes just less, and no one will ever see me when she’s around.

So yeah, sometimes I really hate her. But most of the time? Most of the time I just hate being invisible.


	5. Requiem For A Superhero: Clark Kent

“You don’t want to be partnered with a hypocritical reporter who talks a good game but backs off the minute things hit too close to home,” she says, all scowls and narrowed eyes and self-reproach.

And I have to smile.

In Smallville, there were countless times I wondered what would happen if anyone found out about the freak kid who could run faster than tornados, could lift tractors over his head, could see through barns, could set haystacks on fire. Dad always told me to be careful, that the world was full of people who’d exploit me and use me and study me. Mom was never quite as adamant about it, but I could tell she was afraid for me, afraid someone would take me away from them.

In college, I had to work extra jobs just to be able to afford a single dorm room because I couldn’t take the chance of anyone seeing me float in my sleep. I would sometimes look at my classmates, my professors, my friends, and imagine the looks on their faces if they found out I wasn’t just the mild-mannered farmboy they thought I was.

In every country I visited, every small town I passed through, every person I met in my journey searching for a place to belong, I was terrified that I’d be exposed as a freak. An alien. An outcast.

Mom and Dad taught me to always believe the best in everyone. To look at the world and see the good things. I’ve tried my best to do that, even when it’s hardest, but for all that, I’ve never been able to convince myself that someone finding out about my secret would turn out well. I’ve never been able to think past the imagined looks of shock and horror and fear and revulsion on their faces. I’ve never really thought that if a reporter found out about me, it wouldn’t be splashed across every newspage in the world.

But Lois looks at me, and she thinks she did the wrong thing—and I know firsthand how hard it was for her to kill the story—but she still did it. She’s still covering for her father. Still lying for him. Still sitting on a story sure to cement her reputation as the best investigative reporter in the world.

Do I want a partner who would protect someone she cares about if she found out about their secret?

“Yes, I do,” I say. And for once, that’s not a lie, not an omission, not even an evasion.

It’s the complete and absolute truth.

In fact, the _whole_ truth is—that’s the only kind of partner I’d ever want. And maybe…well, maybe one day I’ll get the chance to see if she’ll do the same thing for me.


	6. I've Got A Crush On You: Lois Lane

He’s too close to her. Sitting next to her, his head just below hers, a perspective she’s not used to, his eyes locked (as it so often is) on her, and she should be moving away. Should be scared and upset and angry and ranting about anything and everything just so long as he puts some distance between them.

But she’s not scared, because this is Clark. There’s a smile curving his lips, and his voice was as light and teasing as the question called for, and he has no idea at all how transparent he is.

So hopeful. So patient. So touched.

And she can’t let him be hurt. Not like she was.

Because once, years ago, that was _her_. Hoping for attention from a more experienced reporter. Patiently biding her time as she waited for the chance to show that she was more than just a young intern. Touched by anything he threw her way, by the French-accented words he’d directed to her.

And when the end had come, it was quick and messy and so terribly painful and it’s still playing itself out in her life now, like electricity crackling down the line, energy that can’t be drained, only redirected.

This time, though, _she’s_ the one with the power. She’s the one who’s being watched, who’s being adored from afar. She’s the one who can make or break this young reporter Perry thinks is so exciting.

And there’s a lot about herself she wishes she could change (those two more points she’s trying to earn to reach that full hundred percent), but if there’s one line she won’t cross, it’s this.

She won’t turn into Claude.

She already stole Clark’s story—she doesn’t need to break his heart too.

So she smirks at him. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she drawls out, drawing a line that sets them apart even though he’s still just as close to her as when he asked his question. “Me, home, alone, in a schlumpy robe, crying into a tub of Rocky Road. In your dreams, Kent. In your dreams.”

His smile dwindles, even if he holds onto the edges of it by sheer force of will. His eyes dim a bit. That hope he seems to exhibit even in his sleep takes the intended beating and slinks away to lick its wounds.

But it’s better this way. Clark might be a nice guy, and they might even work well together as a team (and he might be the most forgiving person she’s ever met), but there’s no chance for anything more. He’s not Superman, and she’s certainly not the type of woman he’s looking for, and in the end, she’s doing him a favor.

She won’t lead him on. She won’t let him think there’s more between them than there really is. And she won’t leave him in the middle of the night with a broken heart and a load of trust issues. She’s doing the right thing here, even if he doesn’t know it.

She only wishes he wouldn’t look quite so hurt every time she does it.


	7. Smart Kids: Phillip Manning

“Different’s worse,” he says, and he’s Superman—tall and powerful and larger than life, and despite what I told him, I know he’s fast enough to take the remote from my hand before I can do more than depress the button a fraction of an inch. But he doesn’t. He just stands there and talks to me, and there’s something in his voice that makes me pause. Something that moves past the intelligence spiraling through my brain like colored ropes, like fancy fireworks in a straight line. There’s something in his voice that sounds a lot like sadness.

Lex Luthor is trying to talk, watching us with cold eyes that sizzle right through me. The remote is heavy in my hand. My brain is never still, never silent, opening up pathways I’ve never even imagined, as if the entire universe is right at my feet, and I should be planning my next move, laughing in glee at all of the plans I have for Metropolis, for the world, for places so much bigger than the island we all thought we wanted.

Only…only Superman is still standing there, looking at me, telling me just how bad being different is—and he’s the one who’s seen the universe. He’s the one who’s come from galaxies away and flown here to make a new home, the one who has the entire world clamoring for his attention, who has a key to the city and a charitable organization named after him and the spotlight always on him.

And he still looks sad.

“I’m not Superman,” Clark Kent had said. “I wish I were.”

But Superman wishes he was ordinary.

It’s a dilemma maybe more complex than even this Mentamide 6 can unravel. A puzzle I can’t quite wrap my head around. Because an ordinary man wants to be extraordinary, and a super man wants to be normal. It doesn’t make sense.

But then, maybe a kid wanting to be an adult doesn’t make sense either. I don’t know anymore. Everything’s so confusing and mixed up, rocketed back and forth between extraordinary intelligence and ordinary thoughts.

“Different is wishing you weren’t,” Superman says, and then he stops.

And Luthor can talk all he wants, Superman can show me as many parks and kites as there are in the world, but I already know what my decision is. It’s not the smart one or the obvious one or the one Luthor thinks I’ll make. It’s not even the one _I_ would have thought I’d make.

But Superman knows what he’s talking about (and Clark Kent was lying), and I don’t want to be different anymore.

So I make the _right_ choice.


	8. The Green, Green Glow Of Home: Jason Trask

You’re strong and fast and sure and the human race will be as nothing before you. You’ll rend and destroy and conquer, and there’s nothing we can do to stop you. Nothing at all. But I won’t stop.

You think you’re superior. You think you’re better than us. I can see it, there in your eyes, glowing like the rock you destroyed. You look at me so scornfully, so condemningly—your derision laid out for the whole world to see.

Well, I’m _not_ less than you. You’ll see. You’ll feel it even if it takes my life to prove it to you.

So many people are blind, so easily misled, so naively gullible. They call you Superman and name you hero and shower you with gratitude. But I see through you. I always have. I’ve known this day was coming, and I’ve done nothing but prepare for it.

I don’t care if you pretend to be a human. I don’t care if you can fight through pain to get rid of that little piece of home. I don’t care how protective you are of the human traitors you’ve taken under your protection. I don’t even care how many times you hit me.

I’ll never stop. I’ll never give up. In this one thing, in this one moment, I can be the hero.

So go ahead and kill me. Give it your best shot. I know you can do it—there’s more than enough condemnation in your eyes, more than enough power in your alien limbs. But the minute you kill me, the instant you strike me dead—I’ll have won. Then all the world will see you for what you truly are. They’ll look at you and finally, _finally_ , see the alien. The extra-terrestrial. The invader.

You pause (weakness, here at the end?). You stare at me (something foreign in your eyes). And then you sneer (and I was right all along).

“That’s not the way I work!” you spit.

And as simply as that, you let go of me. Turn your back on me. Walk away.

Even now, _still_ , you think you’re so much better than me! Even now you think you can outsmart me! You think this world will be yours?

Never!

I’ll still win, but this way I won’t even have to die to do it.

I pull the gun, and you…you’re so confident in your own power, you don’t even suspect a thing, too busy fishing your glasses out of the water. Blending in. A chameleon right in front of us. A costume, as if you could ever belong among us. As if you could _ever_ be one of us. No, you’re just an imposter.

But weakened. Frail. And oh so very vulnerable.

“That’s not the way I work,” you said. Well, this _is_ the way I work, and this is the way that will win the day. This is why humans deserve to win this battle. This is why you’ll never succeed in your mission to conquer us.

My finger twitches on the trigger.

A gunshot sounds.

You turn and look, wide-eyed and startled. Weak. Beaten. Drowning in your own arrogance.

And you should be dropping. You should be falling to your knees. You should be dying, bleeding out in front of me (and I wonder what color your blood is).

But the world is spinning around me, and there’s something sharp and pointed and _aching_ in my chest, and everything seems to be going black.

And you turn your back on me again.

As if even in death I mean nothing. As if, for all my efforts and all my years spent preparing, I’m not worth even a second glance.

And I fall. Alone, and forgotten.

Nothing.


	9. Man Of Steel Bars: Superman

He’s humiliated. Ashamed. Embarrassed, so much so that he almost wishes the earth would open up and swallow him into its depths. Always before he’s been able to fly away, but now even the skies are denied him, and all that’s left is this prison. This cell. These steel bars.

There’s nothing to do (besides survive the taunts of these adult bullies), nobody to save, nowhere to go—even his job is covered for a while. He should be able to just sit and think, plan what his next move should do (what he’ll do if it turns out he’s really causing this heat wave).

But he can’t think.

Or rather, all he can do is think—about too much, about everything, about nothing.

He’d never envisioned going to jail. Not once. And now that he is here, surrounded by cops patting him on the back or shaking his hand or smiling at him and thanking him for all that he’s done even while they lock him up, he can’t help but wonder if he’s given away his secret identity.

He’d pushed over the filing cabinets so they wouldn’t search him (he doesn’t want them wondering why Superman carries ordinary clothes compressed tightly into a pocket of his cape).

He’d ruined the small podium they’d used to take his prints (he can’t have Superman’s prints on record, not when they can so easily be matched to Clark Kent’s).

He’d given as many pictures as they wanted (he’d rather they be thinking about his celebrity-like status than as to why he needed to make a phone-call and who he could be calling at all).

He thinks he’s done everything he needs to make sure the lines between Superman and Clark Kent don’t blur into illegibility.

But what if he’s missed something?

The inmates are jeering at him, slapping him, tugging on his cape, and all he can see is these same people—so shameless in their bullying; so defiant in their perceived safety—going after his parents. This man with his dirty hands reaching out to slap his mom aside. Or punch his dad. Or tug on Lois’s dress.

All he can see is his entire fragile house of cards coming down around him.

He’s Superman right now, imprisoned, under an injunction (that he will break in an instant if he needs to, he knows he will, so he can’t even be angry at his incarceration), and Clark Kent is so very vulnerable.

Missing. Alone. Unaccounted for.

At least not right now. Not yet. But what about during his next hearing? Or tonight when they need to find a place to keep him? Or tomorrow when he might have to face the people of Metropolis and tell them he’s leaving should it come to that?

But then…what if he has to set Superman aside and _only_ be Clark Kent?

He doesn’t think he can do that either. Not anymore. Not after he’s gotten a taste of being able to help so many people without fear of reprisal. Without hiding in the shadows. Without having to move on in the meantime.

“You want to help me out here?” his tormentor asks him when Superman finally ducks aside (he learned a long time ago how to deal with bullying).

“Sorry,” he says (though he really isn’t). “Like you said…can’t use my powers.”

Besides, he thinks, his heart sinking deep inside his dense musculature, he doesn’t know how to help. Not anymore. Not when he’s going to lose either Clark or Superman.

Not when he can’t figure out, in this moment, which one is worse.


	10. Pheromone, My Lovely: Lex Luthor

“I’m doomed.” The words resonate like bells, like a dirge to the fallen.

He’s built an empire. Crafted a legacy that Metropolis—that the _world_ —will never forget. Ensured his name is spoken of in every circle, with fear in some, with respect in others, but always _his_ name. And yet, here, alone in his fortress, with the flames flickering its warmth against his back, he can admit the truth.

His heart has been breached. The one thing he’s guarded above all others. The one thing he’s never allowed to stop him.

And now, thanks to perfume and Superman and a unique collection of events surrounding the woman filling his thoughts, none of it matters.

He’s doomed. Damned to lose it all, in one way or another. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, or next month, or even a year from now. But eventually, somehow, this will come back to haunt him.

His one consolation is that at least his heart waited to succumb to the vagaries of love until it found a woman truly worthy of him. Lois Lane is intriguing and enchanting and beautiful and a mix of the tantalizing and the dangerous, but her worth was proven irrevocably to him at the airfield earlier. Superman himself—the only foe truly worthy of Lex’s time and attention—has fixated on Lois Lane, fallen to her innocently seductive charms.

And if Lex Luthor is going to fall…well, he will make sure that he takes his enemy with him. Superman has already shown his weaknesses, already left the woman he admires open to manipulation by Lex himself. In essence, he’s already lost, his own heart much less guarded and crafty than Lex’s, and thus, victory is already assured.

No, what really worries Lex is his own behavior under the influence of the perfume. _Revenge_ lessens inhibitions, controls the intellectual impulses that modify instinct and reaction and impulse. And yet, under its control, Lex had not simply taken Lois. Had not swept her off her feet. Had not proven to her beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was his and his alone. Had not claimed her for his own.

Instead, he had…quoted _poetry_. Marveled at her beauty. Admired her from afar. Spoke gently, softly, as if to woo her, to court her.

As if she were better, more worthy, more _valuable_ than him.

And that just will not do. Lex Luthor is inferior to no one, most especially not an investigative journalist with a lack of good sense, an overgrown sense of curiosity, and a ridiculous infatuation with a flying alien.

This will not do, not at all.

He’s doomed. Yes, he’s resigned himself to that. But he is Lex Luthor, and he will not go down without a fight. What he needs is a plan, a strategy. A way to seize the high ground. And obviously, right now, the high ground is Lois Lane herself. Her heart, her hand, her entire life.

Superman won’t do it. Even with _Revenge_ pumping through his bloodstream, he hadn’t been able to claim the woman (though he’d gotten further than Lex himself, an unpleasant fact he has to face). His inhibitions are too deeply ingrained, his morals too damaging.

And that gives Lex the edge he needs.

So, very well, his heart has been compromised. But that’s exactly what contingency plans are for, and if there’s one thing he has in abundance, it’s contingency plans.

Lex picks up another pile of crisp bills and runs them through his fingers. Tosses them slowly, one by one, into the fire. And he begins to plan.


	11. Honeymoon In Metropolis: Clark Kent/Lois Lane

“You’re never alone,” he said, and almost felt dizzy at how appealing that suddenly sounded.

Never alone. Never on his own, wondering if there was someone, anyone, out there who could really, truly love him. Never left floating in the clouds and hoping he didn’t lose all connection to the earth below.

Never alone. Having someone there who knew him. Someone he could talk to. Someone with whom he didn’t have to constantly bite his tongue, choose his words with care, lie to. Someone to whom he could tell _everything_ and not be judged, just accepted.

Never alone. To have _Lois_ there with him. Every day. Working at his side. Covering for him when he had to make his excuses. Smiling at him when he saved someone or when they finished a front page story. Looping her arm through his, or just waving at him across the distance between their desks. And every night. Telling him good night without prompting or baiting. Warm and happy and _there_ (and maybe kissing him like she had earlier, on the bed, when that maid had come in).

He wanted it. Wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

But it was just a dream. He hoped, with everything he was, that it would one day come true. But for now, no matter how he wished otherwise, he knew she wasn’t ready—and maybe he wasn’t either.

Only a dream. But _oh_ , it was such a sweet dream.

* * *

 

“You’re never alone,” she repeated, and almost choked at the realization of how much she wanted that.

Never alone. It should scare her. Should terrify her and put her back up and make her remind herself of all the reasons she had to be on her own. She was independent and perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and she didn’t need someone always hanging around her—she’d learned how little she liked that when Lucy was staying with her.

Never alone. It should make her roll her eyes and agree that it would definitely be a drawback to living fulltime with someone. It should make her look at Clark—at the gleam in his eyes he couldn’t always disguise, whether sitting over Chinese or arguing over board games—and make a sarcastic retort and remind them both how impossible this entire situation was and how glad she was that this was fake.

Never alone. It shouldn’t make her think about playing games with Clark and laughing at him and eating dinner with him (and feeling his weight atop hers as he cradled her face in his hands). It shouldn’t make her wonder, even if just for an instant, what it would be like to have Clark always around. Singing out his good night until she replied, teasing her about her competitiveness, helping her expose naked truths.

She imagined it. Let herself contemplate it for a long moment while she played with the ring on her finger.

But it was just a daydream. It was just an idle fancy that came and went without sticking around long enough for it to bother her. Because she knew it would never happen—not for her and not with Clark Kent.

Just a daydream. But, odd, she’d never realized before how easy it was to daydream about Clark.


	12. All Shook Up: Lois Lane

“How close?”

She’s shocked. Maybe it hadn’t really sunk in yet that Clark has lost his memory—that he’s not _Clark_ anymore—the tragedy of such a possibility subsumed beneath the larger crisis facing the world. She’d realized he wasn’t quite right, of course, never more so than when he’d meekly accepted her claim of being senior partner instead of one-upping her with some kind of smart comment and smug smirk. But even then, he’d still been so…Clark-like…so nervously polite in Cat’s clutches, so respectful to Perry and friendly to Jimmy, and backing her up exactly like always at the press conference...so familiar and welcome in the way he followed her so closely.

But now, with his question ringing in her ears like he’d hit her with a two-by-four instead of words, there’s no way to ignore how… _off_ …he is. _Not_ Clark, not quite. Because Clark doesn’t ask these kinds of questions. He doesn’t force confrontations, not about their…partnership. Friendship. Relationship. Whatever.

And that’s the problem right there, isn’t it? Clark’s so good at taking whatever she’s willing to give and not forcing more; at adjusting his own approach to hers; at always being there for her even when he disagrees with her. All this time, he’s just…there, and so she’s been able to avoid labeling anything.

But now he’s looking at her, all earnestness and curiosity and…anticipation? As if he already knows the answer but is waiting to act on it until she confirms it. (And that proves he _is_ still Clark, after all, even if his confusion makes him bold.)

But _she_ doesn’t know what the answer is.

How can she define the warmth his hello smiles send through her? How can she quantify the way she loves talking to him—whether it’s facts about a story or bantering with each other or just saying good night? How can she put into words the easy, comforting, teasing, _many_ little touches they constantly exchange?

She can’t, and that’s why she’s never tried. Never let Clark try. Or really, she’s never let herself think about it and has only rarely— _very_ rarely, usually in moments of loneliness she likes to pretend away—let herself wonder what Clark considers them.

Partners. Friends. _Best_ friends. Something…more. Something closer.

Yes. Close. She likes that. No unreasonable expectations, no undue chances for vulnerability, but still the truth.

Because Clark Kent has wrapped himself around and through every bit of her day to day life. Because she _wants_ him in all those places. Because she can’t imagine her days without him. Because even without his memories, he still smiles at her and lets her take his hand and listens to her talk as if every word she says _matters_.

Because he’s Clark, and she needs him close. Needs him to _stay_ close.

It’s a simple, honest answer. So she wonders why she still feels like she’s missing something.


	13. Witness: Jimmy Olsen

“I’ll stick around—really, I don’t mind.”

He was between places to live at the time and going on his fourth night of sleeping in hidden corners at the Planet, but that wasn’t why he offered.

He loved getting to spend time with Perry and Lois and Clark, this surrogate family he’d gathered around himself—though he’d only call them that in front of, maybe, Clark. But that wasn’t the reason he spoke up either.

He hated seeing Lois constrained, caged even in such a wide net. He didn’t like seeing her strength and determination flicker and give way to fear, even if just for a moment. He felt awful seeing how worried and panicked Clark was—he’d lost count of how many cups of coffee CK had spilled or knocked over, so distracted by trying to catch every hint of danger that he never noticed the desk or chair in front of him. But much as Jimmy wished he was that noble, that wasn’t his motive either.

No. Jimmy opened his mouth and offered to stay at Lois’s side while Clark ran off to hunt down Trevino for a very selfish, kind of dumb reason.

He wanted to be a hero.

Perry had had hundreds of opportunities to be heroic. Lois didn’t care about her own safety at all while she hunted down the bad guys and exposed truths. Clark was brave and selfless, and even if Lois complained and rolled her eyes, Jimmy could tell she appreciated Clark’s quiet heroism. And Superman, of course—the greatest hero of all. Jimmy still had nightmares about waking up from a blur of pheromone-induced madness to see death approaching in the shape of blinding headlights. He still woke up some nights panting and scared, feeling Superman sweep him up and out of danger and back into sanity all at once.

He was surrounded by heroes, and for once, Jimmy wanted to be the one who was brave and strong and resourceful. He wanted to forget that he couldn’t find anyone who wanted to be roommates with him or that his mom had forgotten to send him even a card for his birthday or that Perry couldn’t decide whether he wanted a protégé or a lackey.

Just once, for just an instant, he wanted to be more than Jimmy Olsen.

And it helped that Clark nodded and seemed to trust him with Lois’s safety—which was actually a huge thing, for CK—and that Lois didn’t seem to mind him hanging out with her. But if his moment came, if he really did have the chance to try to be just a little bit like CK, Jimmy just hoped he didn’t let them all down.

He hoped he’d be enough.


	14. Illusions Of Grandeur: Clark Kent

“A trick’s a trick, no matter how big or small,” she said, giving me her trademark skeptical, jaded, I’m-the-senior-partner-and-I-know-better-than-you look. “Once you figure it out, it’s not magic anymore.”

That was what I was most afraid of. It was what had haunted me since I was eighteen and came down from the exhilaration of finding out I could fly. It was what made me sometimes break out in a cold sweat ever since I met Lois. As bulletproof and indestructible as I was, it was this nightmare that I could never escape.

One day I would tell her that I was Superman. That Superman was me. That there was only one man where there should be two. That her hero was just me and that I was an alien.

One day the truth would come out, and I was so afraid—terrified, really—that the magic would all be gone then. No more awed looks and reverential articles. No more benefit of the doubt and admiration. Just disappointment. Disillusionment. Just a trick, exposed to the cold light of day and made ordinary and banal and forgettable.

I didn’t _want_ to trick people. I certainly wasn’t using it as entertainment or charging money for it. In fact, I would have given almost anything to be able to tell Lois Lane this one, overarching secret.

But intentions aside, it _was_ a trick. It was lies and deception and quick exits and missed appointments and constant evasions. It was threaded through every moment of every day of my life, in everything I was—inescapable. No matter what I did, I was tricking someone. No matter what suit I wore, I was lying in some way.

Right now, that was all right. Right now, Lois smiled at Clark and flirted with Superman. She wrote articles about the hero and partnered with the man. She worked with both and liked both to differing degrees.

But once the Secret was out…once the flashy stage lights were doused and the scenery was packed away and the show was over…then what would be left? Would there be any more magic?

I didn’t know, and I was scared to death of the answer.

Maybe one day I wouldn’t be. Maybe one day my dislike of the secrecy would be stronger than my fear of the fallout. And when that day came, when I finally took the glasses off…I could only hope Lois still found at least some tiny scrap of magic left in me. Maybe even enough to love.


	15. Ides Of Metropolis: Lois Lane

“Well, Lois…” Clark said, and she found herself holding her breath. He was smirking, so she knew he was going to tease her, but he was Clark Kent, so she also knew that he’d give her an honest answer anyway.

And he did.

“…just to put your little mind at ease, you’re right.”

She was right. (Of course she was. She was always right.)

He _did_ have more secrets. Bigger secrets than the possible—mistaken—suspicion that his parents’ marriage was almost normal in its flaws. He, small town boy with more naiveté than Pollyanna had ever dreamed of, had a secret, or at least something _he_ considered secret enough to be blackmail material.

Hmm. If this had been just a couple months ago, she knew she’d have jumped all over his admission—followed him, broken into his apartment, confronted him—done anything and everything she could to find out what he could possibly be hiding.

But…but this was Clark. Clark, who had thought Eugene Laderman was a murderer and still followed her lead, albeit with quite a lot of unnecessary complaining and doubting.

Clark, who had told her a secret that obviously meant a great deal to him just because she asked—even knowing that she wanted it to hold over him.

Clark, who held his arm out for her and laughed at his own answer, as if he knew how implausible it sounded.

Clark. Her…her friend. Her partner.

So Lois just laughed with him, and took his arm, and kept step at his side.

Whatever secret he thought he had, she knew he’d tell her someday. And she’d wait to hear it.

Because Clark? Well, Clark was worth the wait.


	16. The Foundling: Martha Kent

Since the moment Martha had first lifted Clark from that crater—so small and helpless—and cradled him in her arms—smiling up at her, cute as all get-out—she’d imagined a thousand and one different reasons for him being there. A baby, tucked so carefully into blankets, propelled so carelessly out into the world, and lying there in the smoking, blackened shell of a rocketship.

She’d imagined white-coated Russians plucking a helpless infant from a destitute orphanage for the purpose of their experiments. American shadow operatives buying a baby from some desperate vagrant and using him to try to discover the secrets of space flight. Even, yes, aliens, cold-bloodedly sending their progeny out on some kind of rite-of-passage. Mostly, she’d imagined scenarios where they, whoever _they_ were, didn’t deserve a baby, and certainly not one as good and smart and loving as Clark.

She’d named him after herself—given him her name since she hadn’t been able to give him life—and showered him with love. And for those first few years, when every approaching car or stranger had made her hold onto her baby boy extra tightly in case they meant to take him away from her, at every milestone he passed she’d been filled with a fierce pride and an almost savage triumph.

_She’d_ been there for his first steps and his first words. She’d taught him his colors and received his report cards. She’d soothed his violent nightmares and comforted him after he’d been bullied. She’d sent him out into the world and taken him back in every time he descended from the skies to bend down and fold himself into her arms. She’d sewn his Superman suit and stitched up the rents in his regular suits. He was _her_ son, and whoever had thrown him away did not deserve him at all. In fact, they deserved the _absence_ of him—the not-knowing what became of him, and the void of his smiles and his hugs and his successes, and the years empty of his love.

That was what she’d thought, anyway. But Clark sat there at the table, his eyes fixed on his hands as he relayed the globe’s messages, and Martha was filled with sudden shame.

All she could see was a mother wrapping blankets around her baby while tears bathed his skin. A father placing a careful hand over his son’s skull, knowing he’d never see him again. All her imagining, her years of pictured scenes, and yet she couldn’t comprehend the horror and the fear that must have consumed that poor Kryptonian couple. Such a terrifying concept, to know their child would die if they did not send him off into the vast expanse of space.

She looked at her baby boy, grown into a man—into a hero—and she didn’t think she could have done it. What faith, what desperation, what absolute love this Jor-El and Lara had had for their child.

_Her_ child. Her Clark, with all his inquisitive openness and gentle compassion and hidden insecurities.

Hers only because of the sacrifice, the _risk_ , his parents had taken.

Her breath was caught in her throat like a sodden lump, and her knuckles were white with the strength of her grip on Jonathan’s trembling hand, and as they looked at their boy, she felt utterly unworthy. A usurper. An imposter. His mother, yes, but at what cost?

“But why couldn’t they save themselves?” she asked, and was not surprised when neither of her men had an answer for her.

But she knew, didn’t she? Because Clark was right in front of her, and he had been for his entire life, and she _knew_ why they had made certain he would be safe above all. Made certain he would live, happy and healthy and whole, instead of them. He was their son, but hers too, and in the end, she _could_ imagine it—giving their son his best chance at life no matter how scared they were or what it might cost them.

She could imagine it because she’d done the same thing, after all—wrapped him up in a Suit made partly of those same baby blankets and sent him out into the unknown, with only the hope and the faith that he’d be all right, knowing it might backfire on them all but letting him do it because it was for the best.

Because she wanted him to live. Happy and healthy and whole. She wanted him to thrive. And she felt a sudden, sharp kinship with Jor-El and Lara. They’d sent out their son, and given him to her, and she hoped they had somehow known that she and Jonathan would love their son with all their hearts.

She hoped they knew he would become the best of all of them.


	17. The Rival: Perry White

“That’s what Clark told me.” Lois rolled her eyes and turned toward the door, already heading out, already not believing a word he said.

Perry had seen that exact expression from her more times than he could count. She was a great one for skepticism, his star reporter, and as that pertained to his paper, it was a great thing. But sometimes—okay, a _lot_ of the time—it wasn’t quite as welcome. She had a real nose for news, and Perry was prouder of her than he could say, but she reminded him of himself and he knew better than anyone his own flaws.

Dedication to the job, determination to root out every lie and uncover every secret, and an absolute unwillingness to lose any battle.

In other words, she was pigheaded and completely untrusting.

She’d rolled her eyes when he told her she had to start out as an intern before becoming a staff writer. She’d scoffed when he told her not to expect a Kerth nomination every year. She’d shrugged aside all the concerns and questions he’d had for her after Claude’s hasty transferal. And she’d hemmed and hawed like nothing he could believe when he’d assigned Clark to be her partner.

But this…this was slightly different, and obstinate as she could be, Perry couldn’t help but smile and shake his head as soon as she was out of the office.

Lois wasn’t the only stubborn reporter Perry had in his newsroom, and this time, even though he’d never bet against Lois before, he thought he’d put money on Clark Kent instead. There was something about that young man, something that had gotten under Lois’s skin in record time, something that made Lois’s skepticism now seem just a bit forced, almost as if it was made purely out of habit rather than real disbelief.

It was a dangerous game Clark was playing, and Perry was pretty sure he was going to be made to regret forcing the kid to keep his plan a secret from Lois, but for now…well, for now, it was downright amusing to watch the battle of wills.

And what the hey, a desk jockey had to get his amusement somewhere, now didn’t he?


	18. Vatman: Clark Kent

“Almost.”

Such a small word. Such a terrible void.

Everything was all right with the world…almost. Because for once—for the first time in Clark’s life—there had been someone like him. There’d been someone who could follow Clark up into the air; who could shake hands with him without either one of them having to worry about the amount of pressure they applied; who could understand him when he wanted to talk about the responsibility—the joys and the tragedies—of rescues.

For the first time—for the only time—there’d been someone he was actually, really connected to.

And now there wasn’t. Now the world was once more alien, and Clark was once more all alone, and there was no one he could let loose with, no one he could share horrors and triumphs with.

Lois was at his side, leaning into him, smiling and laughing, and it should have been enough to make him happy. But much as he loved spending time with her and talking to her, his secret—his truth—stood between them, and it was every bit as small and encompassing as that _almost_.

The sky spanned the heavens above him, a thousand times ten thousand stars glinted their hidden lights down at him, and Clark had never felt so small before. He could still feel the weight of his clone—his brother—in his arms, could still hear that erratic heartbeat falter and fade and those shallow breaths just…stop. He could still see the limp form of his brother, wrapped in his red cape, looking so terribly fragile, drifting toward the flaming pyre of the sun.

He’d come back through the cleansing fire of the atmosphere, had showered, had been purged of one fear only to have another thrust at him with Jimmy’s mistaken news about Perry, but none of that was enough to distance him from the tragedy of this afternoon.

He hadn’t been alone. For just a few days—filled with confusion, then rage, then panic, then desperation—he _hadn’t_ _been alone_. That was a new feeling for him, one he wished he could have savored more before it was so cruelly yanked away.

But maybe it was better this way. Maybe it was better not to have gotten a full taste of having someone bound to him by blood and genetics and powers. Maybe this way it would be easier for him to settle back into the chains of the isolated life he had before. Except…he had never thought of himself as _chained_ before, had never realized just how cut off he felt, and it didn’t seem to matter how short a time he’d known about his clone—it still affected him.

Almost. He’d _almost_ been a part of something. He’d _almost_ had the same feeling every human in the world—no matter how alienated they felt at any given moment—had and took for granted. He’d _almost_ been a part of a group, a collective, a _plural_.

Almost, but not anymore. Now he was alone…again. Cut off…again. Trapped…again.

And he was just going to have to get used to it because he couldn’t risk the kind of danger another—unpredictable—Superman brought. _It’s better this way_ , he told himself, and he believed it.

_Almost_.


	19. Fly Hard: Lex Luthor

He hates Clark Kent. Something about the man has always rubbed him wrong, ever since he’d cut in on Lex’s first dance with Lois Lane, and that grating feeling has only gotten worse the longer their…association…continues. Which it will, it seems, indefinitely, since Kent has attached himself so pathetically to Lois, like a limpet.

This isn’t the first time Lex has realized that the small-town reporter has graduated from being beneath his notice to being on his bad side—that award goes to the day Miranda sent him to the Planet just in time to witness Lois throwing herself all over a man so obviously beneath her—but it is perhaps the first time Lex realizes just how _much_ he hates Kent.

Why? Why should the self-righteous do-gooder matter to him at all? He’s always hanging around Lois, of course, throwing her stupid puppy dog looks, and bristling back at Lex with all the pathetic menace of the same, but it’s not like he’s any real _competition_. He does usually have a sarcastic comment or three ready whenever he sees Lex, no matter that Lex is always careful to let him know he’s beneath his notice. And, perhaps most irritatingly, he never swallows the line every other reporter does at Lex’s press conferences, and always asks some question that toes the line of being dangerous.

But those are all minor details, combined in an unthreatening package, barely worth a quibble when compared to Lex’s rivalry with other, worthier foes—like Superman, for instance.

And yet, for all the reasons there are to forget the man entirely, Lex almost wishes he’d been stuck here in the Daily Planet with _anyone_ else, if only Kent would disappear off the face of the earth. He can’t quite put his finger on _why_ he dislikes Clark Kent so intensely—another reason to find issue with him; Lex prefers things to be kept as clear and uncomplicated as possible—he only knows that he’s envisioned over a dozen rather dire fates to bestow on the undeserving giblet in the last few hours alone.

But he has never hated the man as much as he does now, with that smug smirk on his lips and a cocky tilt to his brows while everyone there jumps to his defense.

“Don’t ask me if I’d do it again,” Kent says archly, and turns away. _Dismissing_ him! _Him_ , Lex Luthor. He’s worth a _thousand_ Clark Kents! _Ten_ thousand!

It’s then, regardless of the reasons for his hate, that Lex swears to himself that one day, someday— _soon—_ Clark Kent will pay for his effrontery.

No one saves Lex Luthor’s life and then holds it over him. No one!


	20. Barbarians At The Planet: Lois Lane

“Well, tell me now,” you say, all openness and patience and care.

I’ve been itching to tell you, counted down the hours last night as I lay in bed sleepless, impatient to hear your calm counsel. But now, looking at you as you put everything aside to give me your attention, I can’t say anything. The words all bunch up in my throat, trapped and swollen and shuffling bashfully, refusing to march forward into the open.

Tell you. As if it’s easy. As if it’s simple. As if I won’t be breaking your heart.

You’re so clueless, Clark, and I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve stopped really talking about Lex with you or if it’s because you have convinced yourself that it’s not serious. It’d be easy to do, I think, considering _I_ sure hadn’t realized just how serious it apparently is! You have no idea how much I could hurt you.

Or…not hurt you, exactly. Surprise you—yes, that’s what it would do. Take you aback. Of course it wouldn’t _hurt_ you, I don’t know where that thought came from. You and I are friends, and partners, but that’s all. That’s more than I ever thought we’d be, though maybe not quite as much as you once thought (hoped?) we’d be.

I can still remember it, you know. Sometimes I think you assume it’s all swept under the rug and forgotten, but I do have a good memory, and I remember the way you looked at me over Chinese fortune cookies. The look in your eyes the next day when you told me I was all yours (and how was I supposed to know that I was supposed to take that literally?) The confident way you danced with me at Lex’s ball. The hopeful way you asked me out to dinner to celebrate our story.

It all went away right in that moment, too, when I remembered I was supposed to go to dinner with Lex, and got angry and blew you off (anger’s always been easier than risking anything more sincere). You didn’t look at me with that look in your eyes anymore (at least not when you thought I was looking back). You didn’t ask me out to dinner, to celebrate or otherwise (only friendly lunches you always have a dozen justifications for). You turned your confidence into humor and you tell me that we’re friends.

And we are friends. _Good_ friends. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had in my life, and that’s why I couldn’t wait to tell you about this proposal. To tell you that I’m scared but flattered, unsure and confused, and altogether way out of my depth. But now that I’m looking at you, I remember that it’s not just that you’re _my_ friend—I’m _your_ friend too. And I can’t say it. I can’t wade past all these memories of your hand on my back and the hugs you give me and the way you stare at me across the newsroom when you think I won’t notice just so I can tell you this news.

I can’t hurt you like this.

“Tell me now,” you said, as if we’ll still be the same tomorrow as we were yesterday. And I wish that were true.

But I know it’s not.


	21. House Of Luthor: Perry White

There are a lot of mysteries about Clark Kent, little things that don’t add up. The amount of time he spends outside the newsroom, the miraculously fast way he produces articles moments before deadline, the way he managed to get under Lois’s defenses so quickly, the way he never seems to get annoyed with Jimmy…and of course, the truth behind his connection to Superman—closer, at times, then even Lois, it would seem.

Nothing too big, of course, and Perry likes it that way. A small puzzle here and there is what makes people interesting, what ensures there are stories to find and write up and publish. Those foibles and enigmas are what turns a story from dry facts into news. So it’s all right that Clark’s got a couple secrets. Perry’s sure never told anyone some of _his_ trade secrets, and if Clark wants to play fast and loose with excuses and that disappearing act of his, it’s never affected the news—and therefore, never mattered much to Perry.

But for all of the things that don’t make sense about Clark, there’s been one thing about him clearer than the genius of Elvis’s voice. One truth he can’t hide. One secret he can’t keep—except, possibly from the one person who matters most. One thing that everyone at the Daily Planet knows.

And that’s the fact that Clark Kent is head over heels in love with Lois Lane.

Oh, the kid’s done a good job of pretending like friendship is plenty good enough for him. And, well, with as tough a case as Lois Lane, Perry’s actually pretty impressed Clark has already got that far. He’s patient and undemanding and apparently one of the most laidback people in the world—and smart, too, to see past Lois’s brash façade so quickly, and to realize just how much the diamond hidden underneath is worth.

Lois actually does think Clark is just her friend, or at least, Perry’s pretty sure she does. If he knows that first star reporter of his at all, Clark has probably heard all about being Lois’s friend—she might have even played the brother card on him by now—and everyone in the newsroom has heard Lois talking up Superman to her partner, ignoring his rolled eyes and casual shrugs. It’s all part of her defense system, shutting down anything that could possibly happen _before_ it can happen.

But Perry doesn’t think either Lois or Clark saw Lex Luthor coming. Lois no doubt convinced herself that it was no big deal, while Clark counseled himself to patience.

Fat lot of good it did either one of them.

Now Perry’s left without one reporter—doesn’t even know what to say to her when she asks him about the RSVP to her wedding—and can see the other…well, Clark’s not dwindling away. Not in so many words. He’s tougher than that, and more desperate too. But he’s definitely changing, wrapped up in this investigation to the exclusion of all else. Matter of fact, Perry kind of misses the easy comfort Clark used to exude, before this frantic intensity changed all that.

“Maybe it doesn’t even matter _what_ we find,” Clark says heavily. “Maybe _Luthor_ is what she wants.”

And for the first time, Perry thinks he can hear a note of defeat there in his voice. For the first time, Clark looks tired, worn out. Almost resigned. Beaten.

If there’s one thing Perry knows, it’s how to meet a deadline, and in his entire life of deadlines, this is the one that means the most—to save the Planet. To save Lois.

And to save the Clark he’s never stopped being glad he hired.


	22. Madame Ex: Lois Lane

“My instincts say…”

Her breath freezes in her lungs.

She’s made so many mistakes, and most of them have all been in some way or another connected to the man standing in front of her, hesitating as he makes his decision—to abandon her (as she deserves) or to stand by her (as he has done so many times before). She’s taken him for granted. Ignored his warnings. Treated him like a friend who betrayed her (instead of the other way around, as it actually was). Ignored him for weeks. Held onto him after her disastrous decisions crashed down around her in rubble and regret. Refused to let him have any distance from her at all as the Planet rebuilt itself from her ashes (in case he realized that he’d be better off away from her).

Dismissed his declaration of love.

And now, a mere couple months after that catastrophe, here she is, telling him to trust her instincts. Her instincts. Ha! Where did those lead her when Lex was wining and dining and playing her? Where were they when Superman came to her apartment and did his best (in vain) to stop her before she spilled out her heart in front of him? What good have her instincts ever been where Clark is concerned (always warning her away, telling her to lock herself behind tall, thick walls, instead of trusting him)?

But she’s still standing, still asking, still waiting (even breathlessly) because she can’t give up. Not on herself. Not on her career. Not on him.

(She missed out on the chance to have his love, but he is still her partner…for now).

He opens his mouth (she tenses). He takes a breath (she cannot). He says, “…never argue with a woman who’s just been behind bars.”

It’s so Clark. All humor and deflection and understanding. All trust and forgiveness and an agreement to ignore all the reasons he has not to trust her (or even to give her the time of day).

Simple. Clean. Friendly.

Her breath leaves her in a whoosh, his arm is warm in hers, and his slight smile is fuel enough for the grin making her cheeks hurt and her heart ache.

All she’s done to him, all she’s _not_ done for him, but still he is Clark.

Her friend. Before, she might have felt regret at that; now there is only room for relief. Because no matter the qualifier, never mind the definition, he is still hers.


	23. Wall Of Sound: Perry White

As soon as you saw the announcement, you knew there’d be trouble. You know that gal better than your own kids, and this was going to cause conflict like even Elvis might not have seen in his lifetime.

Lois Lane _not_ a Kerth contender for the first time since she’d been eligible? You didn’t need tea leaves to know that the roof was going to blow sky-high.

Still, you’d told yourself, Clark seemed to have the magic touch with Lois. Had since he’d started working for you, almost. And he often just laughed at what would send any other man running for the hills. Maybe he’d have just the thing to say to defuse Lois before any calamity could be unleashed on your functioning, orderly, _award-nominated_ newsroom.

You’ve always been a dreamer.

Your first clue was Clark’s reaction. Why, you’ve never seen anyone so surprised to hear his own name. Bad news—meant there was no way he’d thought of a way to handle this. The fact that Lois was already standing to receive her praise hadn’t boded well either.

They’re friends, you thought. Lois seems to value Clark more than you ever thought he’d get the chance to see. For Clark’s sake, maybe she’d make an effort. Let the way he’d softened her work on him instead of just on everyone else around them. Maybe he could still contain this.

Ah, the delusions of the desperate.

This wasn’t going well at all. You could see the meltdown already occurring. Clark was silent, Jimmy grabbed his front-row seat for the ensuing drama, and Lois was speechless. The final warning sign and definitely the worst.

Lois babbling? That’s good—means she’s working through it. Lois listing off steps and plans—still good, even better in fact since that usually meant front page headlines. But Lois speechless? Very, very bad. Meant she was going to explode.

Still, it was all happening somewhat…slowly. She was speechless, but she was still sitting, and she wasn’t yelling, and Clark almost looked amused. So…maybe this could still be salvaged. There might be hope yet. Clark has done wonders for the newsroom in the past year, and Lois _is_ capable of extreme loyalty, you know that better than most. It could still work out.

One day, you’ll learn better than to listen to yourself.

“Lois,” you say, warningly. Might as well since Clark still doesn’t seem to have recovered from his daze. Or maybe the man actually wants to see the meltdown—sometimes he does seem to have a death wish where Lois is concerned. “Don’t you have something to say to Clark?”

Unfortunately, you’re not stupid enough to miss the gleam in her eyes as she looks up at her partner.

You sigh, and hope there will still be a newsroom when the explosion is over.

You hope there will still be a _Lane and Kent_ when this is all over.

One of these days, just _once_ , you’d like to actually have one of your delusions come true.


	24. The Source: Superman

“Lois,” I say, “if anyone knows what it’s like to be on the outside…I do.”

Will she listen? Will this finally get through to her? It’s possibly the most open I’ve ever been with her in the cape—aside from the one night we both do our best to forget and pretend away—and the most vulnerable I’ve been with her since she was digging a Kryptonite bullet out of my shoulder.

But is it enough?

She’s had it rough lately. The aftermath of her wedding and the fall of Luthor’s empire. His ex-wife targeting her and framing her and bringing her to her knees at my side—seeing her hero, for the first time, breakable and mortal. Losing out on a Kerth. And now this with this source of hers. It’s enough to break a lesser woman, and I’m worried that it might be enough even to shake the great Lois Lane.

She’s questioning herself. I’ve never seen her do that before, not really. Oh, there have been times where she’s posed hypothetical questions to Clark that I’m not supposed to know are about her, and moments she’s had a bit of a setback. But nothing like this afternoon, sitting at her desk…adrift. Lost. That indomitable spark in her eye sputtering as if it might go out.

It scares me. A _lot_.

I’ve never been able to tell her in so many words—not in either of my guises—but one of the things I love most about Lois is her fire. Her passion. Her drive. The way she never seems to flounder or falter, just keeps moving forward. I mean, sure, it can be irritating, like when she refused to give up on her first assessment of Luthor. But mostly? Mostly it’s breathtaking. I envy her really—I’ve never been as certain about _anything_ as she can be about _everything_.

Well, never…except for about one thing.

I’m certain— _completely_ certain—that I love her. It may never go anywhere. Maybe my lies and her pride and our desperate desire to hold onto our friendship will kill any chance for more. Maybe friends is all we will ever be. But I do love her, and I don’t want her to lose herself.

I do feel like I’m on the outside looking in. A freak looking for belonging. An exile looking for a home. A hero looking for normalcy and an ordinary man looking for greatness. All of these things and more, but mostly, now, all I want to do is bring back that spark to her eye. I want to revive the floundering remnants of the Lois Lane who charges forward with the supreme confidence that she is right and the world will reorder itself to her ideals or she will know the reason why.

And I don’t even care _who_ brings her back—Clark or Superman or anyone else. All right, so maybe I do want it to be _me_ , but I’m past caring about _which_ one of me it is.

She’s always listened to Superman. She’s been listening to Clark more, too, lately, but right now, maybe she needs someone who’s just that step removed. She expects pep talks and encouragement from Clark. But Superman…Superman may be enough to propel her into motion.

I hope so. Because I need her. I _need_ her to be confident and sure and unafraid. She has rapidly become the center of my universe, and if _she_ is not sure, of Superman and Clark and their place in the world and herself…then what will happen to me? How will I find my way the next time I stumble? Who will I rely on to steer me in the right direction?

_I need you, Lois_ , I think. _You have no idea just how much_.

And that? That scares me too.


	25. The Prankster: Clark Kent

Wait…what? Why was Perry looking at him? Why was Jimmy giving him a conspiratorial look while biting back a grin—and _clearing his throat_! And Lois…oh no. Lois was looking at him too, all amused and…expectant?

How embarrassing! Humiliating even! He and Lois were just friends—she’d made that abundantly clear to him, and after the disaster a couple months ago, he knew he was very lucky  to even get to be that. And he only was because he’d told her that he didn’t really love her. They were partners. Friends. That was all.

And partners did not send elaborate gifts in front of the elite of the art world.

Friends did not write flowery—stupid, really, if he was honest—poetry that hinted at feelings a whole lot deeper than mere friendship.

So, again, why was Perry biting back a laugh? Why was Jimmy bouncing on his feet like this was the best thing to happen to him since Christmas? And why was Lois _still_ looking at him?

Wait…she was looking at him…and she _wasn’t_ frowning. Or glaring. Or ranting. Or getting flustered and awkward and running out on him. So…did that mean she _wanted_ Clark to send her something like this? She’d be _okay_ with him telling her he wanted a whole lot more than friendship?

But then, she did look awfully amused. Maybe she just thought it was a joke. And yes, he did like to tease her, but come on—did she have any idea how painful it had been to confess that he loved her and have her tell him that she ‘didn’t feel that way about him’? Well, no, of course she didn’t, because he’d told her it was just a ruse. But still, didn’t she know him at all? It was fun to get a rise out of her, but it was awfully soon after her almost-wedding and the death of her fiancé to try something like this just for a joke. He was a little more sensitive than that!

Not to mention scared out of his mind to lose her again.

So, no, this wasn’t him. There was no reason for Perry to look pleased, as if he’d been waiting for this moment as long as Clark. No reason for Jimmy to be waiting for a scene he probably thought would be straight out of a movie since he wasn’t aware of just what label Lois had given Clark. And no reason for Lois to look so…so…so accepting! Really, couldn’t _she_ be a bit more sensitive to his feelings?

And anyway, if he _were_ going to try to…to…to _court_ her, he’d know better than to do it in a place like this, where he was a bit out of his element and Lois was aware of all the eyes on them. He’d certainly do a better job on the card, too—he was a writer, for goodness’ sake! He’d have a lot more to say than some cheesy rhyme that sounded as if it was written by a child! And…and…

And who was he kidding? He would never be brave enough to risk having his heart trampled by Lois Lane again.

He met Perry’s eyes, met Jimmy’s eyes, but couldn’t meet Lois’s. “Don’t look at me!” he exclaimed. After all, no reason to.

It was someone else. It was always someone else. And he knew why it always would be, didn’t he? He knew why it would never be him.

No, don’t look at him. He was just a coward.


	26. Church Of Metropolis: Mayson Drake

He didn’t know. Had no clue—how could he? His partner seemed to pretty much take him for granted, the owner of the restaurant being threatened hardly knew him, and if Lois Lane was any indication, he was probably taken for granted at the Daily Planet too. So who would have told him that he was just…just incredible?

He smiled that shy smile, uncomfortable and surprised and nervous all at once, and she wanted to reach out and touch it. Just to see if it was real. Just to let a little bit of that innocence rub off on her.

“I’m just telling the truth,” he said, “there’s nothing too brave about that.”

She didn’t want to just touch him; she wanted to _protect_ him. How long had he been living in Metropolis? She knew from the forms they’d filled out that he was from Smallville, Kansas, but here he was, reporter for the biggest paper in the largest East Coast city, and still just as naïve as the day he’d arrived. How had he survived this long? What kept him from picking up the same dirt and deceptiveness and cynicism that everyone else was coated in?

She’d been like that once. When she’d first started, an intern working her way through college, dreaming big dreams of justice for all the oppressed. She’d planned to help and serve and better the world. But now here _she_ was—assistant DA, sure, but not much room for advancement because she wouldn’t go into the backrooms, wouldn’t engage in the politicking. Or at least, she told herself she didn’t, but she hadn’t gotten to where she was without learning to look the other way when it was most important.

“I’m just telling the truth,” he said, as if that wasn’t amazing all on its own. As if it really was as simple as that.

From the moment she’d seen him, Mayson had liked Clark. He was handsome and earnest and friendly, and those were all things that were rare enough in her world. But this, here, tonight, sitting next to him and laughing at his tentative jokes and trying to prepare him for what Snell would throw at him, she realized she more than liked him.

She could love him. Very easily. _Too_ easily, maybe, and maybe she was moving a little fast, but she didn’t dare leave him out in the open where anyone else in this city—the thousands of scheming, ambitious women who nonetheless were just as lonely as Mayson was—could snatch him up.

Her phone number, a private meeting to go over the deposition, sliding her jacket off—something she’d _never_ done around any of the men from the courtroom and law offices—and still she hadn’t known exactly what she wanted with Clark. A few dates, a night or two, some fun out on the town? But none of that was good enough, not for him.

She wanted him.

So much darkness in this city, all selfishness and greed and vice and lies, and in the middle of all that, here was Clark Kent, shining like a beacon. Humble and sincere and _good_. For so long she’d felt like she was drowning in the murky waters of law, just biding time until she slipped and went under to join the rest of the sharks. Surely no one would begrudge her for reaching out to the last sliver of humanity in sight and hoping it would save her from the dark.

“There’s nothing too brave about that,” he said, but she thought he was quite possibly the bravest man she’d ever met.

So she would be brave too. She would reach for him, and hope he caught her before she drowned.


	27. Operation: Blackout: Perry White

Fire’s in your blood, ink stains your fingers, the ticking and tacking of typewriter keys echo in your ears, and you feel alive. Fierce and triumphant and younger than you’ve felt since you first accepted the title and office and responsibilities of Editor-in-Chief.

They tried to conquer you, tried to pull you down from the masthead and crush this paper beneath their feet, but here you are—the only paper in the city to publish today’s edition.

All right, so maybe you’re exhausted, and your head definitely aches, and Alice might not speak to you for another week, but right now, none of that matters. Right now, this is your kingdom and you reign undefeated, leader of a small group of warriors that followed your lead and never gave up.

Your two top knights are here, strolling in with the results of their heroics. Still working together, standing so close to each other their shoulders brush (and as valiant as you feel tonight, you’re not going to even try to ask why they’re both dressed in military uniforms that were, you’re sure, illegally obtained), and that’s a miracle in and of itself after everything they’ve gone through.

With them on your side, and Andy as your cavalry, you’re only missing one piece, and he’s tucked away safe in your office, sleeping the sleep of the innocent and overworked. The prince—he stayed at your side all day, willing to go wherever you pointed, eager to learn all you have to teach him, from courting a woman to ruling a news empire.

You’re still buzzing with energy (or all the caffeine he kept bringing and you kept drinking), alight with victory, but you let him sleep. He deserves it. He’s the one who translated for Andy, who fetched extra typewriters and paper and White-Out, and ran copies back and forth. He’s been your shadow for hours and hasn’t gone home in over a day and a half. The kid’s earned a bit of shut-eye.

Truth is, as melodramatic and slaphappy as you probably are right now, you’ve never been so proud before.

“You know,” you hear yourself saying, “I think he’s got the heart of a real newsman.”

One day, maybe _he’ll_ rule this kingdom of yours.


	28. That Old Gang Of Mine: Jimmy Olsen

“You killed CK!” The words burst from his mouth without any conscious direction, as little an action of his own as the way he’s pushed back into the crowd. It’s a fact. A truth. The grim reality he woke up to. The glaring emptiness he’s faced all day where once there was a friend who smiled and laughed and helped. They’re as obvious and unnecessary as saying air is for breathing or Lois never gives up.

The next words, however, are all him, loud and strident, more for everyone else in the room instead of himself.

“This is the guy who killed Clark!”

And Jimmy’s never felt like this before. He knows what it is without question, despite its newness—it’s fury. It’s rage and wrath and a thirst for vengeance that might even rival Perry’s temper.

He’s angry. So angry he can hardly see straight. How _dare_ this thug come into the newsroom where Clark coaxed smiles out of Lois and cajoled Perry to stillness. Where he’d walked at Jimmy’s side and listened to his problems as if he were more than just the office lackey. Where they’d been a family. How dare Clyde Barrows and his friends think they could just stroll in here and tear what was left of Jimmy’s world down around him?

He killed Clark. Jimmy had read the police report. Clark was just trying to protect Lois. He was just doing what was natural to him—the right thing. He was being as good as always, and Jimmy _knew_ Clark (the past tense of it still tears him up inside, like a red-hot coal sitting in his stomach and slowly burning everything else away), there was no one gentler or more mild-mannered, no one who was less offensive.

And this outdated criminal just shot him. Not once, not twice, but _three_ times. And Jimmy hasn’t been able to close his eyes since he got the call from Perry without seeing his friend, so young and so undeserving, lying in a pool of blood. He hasn’t been able to go two minutes without imagining Clark— _CK_ , and it still doesn’t seem possible, because it’s just so _wrong_ , so unfair—being thrown out of a car like trash. Like yesterday’s newspapers. Lying forgotten and abandoned and cold in some dirty, grungy alley (and Jimmy once tracked down Superman’s body, or at least his cape, so why can’t he seem to do the same for CK?).

And it’s all this man’s—this _monster’s_ —fault.

So, yeah, Jimmy knows what he’s doing. There are a lot of these clones, and they have a lot of guns, and Jimmy’s just a stupid kid (except with CK; _he_ never looked at Jimmy like that, always treated him like an equal), but he doesn’t care.

He wants them all to know. Everyone at this party who were just drinking toasts to a man they saw every day for the past year and a half. The man they all knew because he always had a smile and friendly greeting and listening ear for them all. He wants them all to know that it is this man, right here, all bluster and bullets and a heart of black, who is responsible for taking Clark away from them all. He wants them all to surge forward and make him _pay_ for what he stole from them.

A gun has never seemed so inconsequential. Numbers have never mattered less. All that matters is that Clark was there every day without fail…until now. Until three bullets. Until Clyde Barrows.

Red hazes Jimmy’s vision, and he wonders: if Jimmy’s life can be made so much worse by this one man, then maybe Jimmy can make _Clyde’s_ life worse, too. It’s only one second, a tiny window of opportunity afforded by Superman’s timely arrival (and Jimmy loves the superhero, really he does, but _where was he_ when _CK_ needed him?), and scary too.

Jimmy doesn’t care. He takes it. He strikes. He feels fierce, savage satisfaction flood him when Clyde hits the floor. (He still feels cold and dark and alone, because Clark is still gone.)

For Clark. For CK.

For his friend.


	29. Bolt From The Blue: Lois Lane

Things had been different between her and Superman ever since the night she told him she loved him. For the most part, she knows, they mostly just try to pretend it never happened, but for a while, there was a stiffness between them. Until she found him lying on the floor with a bullet in his shoulder and blood on his skin and mortality suddenly clinging to him as much as to any other person. Then, after the bullet hole closed and he thanked her for saving his life, things were better. He started making occasional visits to her place at night, telling her his favorite song, dancing with her, smiling at her. Opening up to her.

And now this.

It doesn’t seem possible. It’s almost too much—too fantastical—to comprehend. Flying men? Sure, she believes in those, enough to risk her life knowing one will come save her. Aliens among them? Of course, and he’s an unbelievable dancer. Clones? Been there, done that. But Superman _lying_? No. Impossible. As unbelievable as Clark making a bad cup of coffee.

Since the moment he ripped open the door of that space shuttle and swallowed that bomb, then given her that heart-stopping smile, Lois had known Superman. She’d been willing to bet she knew him better than anyone except maybe Clark. He was a hero—the best hero there had ever been—who always helped because he could not stand aside and do nothing. He was an icon, the closest thing to a god humanity could come face to face with. He was brave and noble and honest, and always, without fail, came down on the side of right.

So then…how could this be possible?

She wanted to dismiss the very possibility…but she couldn’t.

She’d been a reporter for a long time—longer than she’d worked at the Planet—and she knew that this wasn’t a mistake or a misunderstanding. It wasn’t a miscommunication or simple evasion the likes of which she’d never realized before just how often he did. It wasn’t anything she wanted it to be. If something looked and walked and talked like a duck, chances were that it _was_ a duck. And if all the facts pointed to Superman being involved in Waldecker’s transformation, then…

…then Superman was a liar.

He was standing right in front of her, and for the first time she had nothing to say. She could only stare at him while he looked back, as if…as if he were waiting. For what? For her usual gullible acceptance of everything he told her? For an accusation? Condemnation? What did he want from her?

She didn’t know. In a world where even Superman could lie, she felt as if all the rules had changed.

In the end, there was only one thing she _could_ say. After all, when he’d first revealed himself to the world, she’d been the one to name him. To proclaim the truth of him to the public. Now, in this new world where even Superman was fallible, she had to declare the new truth.

She took a deep breath, and finally said it—a question, but one that there was no going back from.

“Did you lie to me?”


	30. Christmas Greedings: Clark Kent

She knew. She knew he’d lied to her. For good intentions, sure, but a lie just the same. Here was where she would get mad, for no reason she’d admit, though she’d say plenty. Or shrug him and his gesture off, tell him archly not to feel sorry for her, go home and see his family, she’d see him when he got back, don’t worry about her. Here was where he got shown the door, one way or another, and he’d known it was a risk coming her, but Lois had looked so forcedly casual when she asked Clark to come, so poignantly desperate when she invited Perry and Jimmy, and so forlorn when she’d been left alone outside the orphanage.

And he wanted to spend the evening with her, his honest side insisted on adding. Yeah. There was that. A _lot_ of that.

She’d asked him— _him_ , Clark!—to spend the holiday with her, after all. The first time she’d invited Clark to celebrate _any_ holiday with her, and she’d asked him before anyone outside her family. He couldn’t help but feel as if this was a huge step forward for them—maybe, he dared to hope, to something more than friendship.

So yeah, it’d been a risk, but he hadn’t _not_ been able to take it. But he’d lied, and he was here just for her, and now Lois’s pride would never let her accept his presence. His gift to her. Or really, his honest side piped up again, _her_ gift to _him_ —hours alone with Lois, dinner over candlelight, the opportunity to open up about more than just work for more than just a minute or two and no interruptions. _More_ , that was what it would be.

If only she’d let him stay.

He watched intently as Lois stared him. Waited, hoping, fearing, wondering if it’d be anger or casualness that ended the night with him staring the dark wood of her door.

And then Lois smiled at him. A wide, delighted, _beautiful_ smile. “You,” she said slowly, purposefully, “are just the best.” And to top it all off, she leaned into him, her hands inching up his shoulders.

He was grinning, and he couldn’t help it. She was letting him stay! And—he was once more forced to be honest—she was pressed into him, warm and inviting and smiling, as if there was no one else she’d rather be there for her.

The best. She’d never called him that before. Not once. Not ever. Superman was perfect, even Lex had been nearly perfect at times, but Clark? Clark had never been anything more than ‘best friend’ or ‘brother’ or ‘partner.’ All good things—except ‘brother,’ he could admit without any prompting whatsoever—but ‘best’?

Best was…well, just about best thing he’d ever heard.

Clark let his hands fall on Lois’s hips, and for just this one evening, on this holiday he loved more than any other, let himself imagine that this whole night, and all the nights that came after, would be just as perfect as that word.


	31. Metallo: Lois Lane

“I mean,” she said, trying her hardest to get her point across, “h-he’s a lot like _you_.”

She was pointing at Clark.

She was talking to Clark.

She _meant_ Clark.

And she was simultaneously shocked and _not_ -shocked by that. On the one hand, of _course_ Clark was good and honest and full of integrity. For all that she’d thought it was just some kind of affectation to begin with, and then that it was a naiveté that would be hammered out of him after a couple months in the big city, and then—strangely, now that she thought about it—taken for granted, it was true. Clark was one of the best men she knew. True, the list was short enough, and it wasn’t like he had a lot of competition, but—

But no. Those were the sorts of qualifying excuses she always made when she started thinking about how much she…admired…Clark. And that was why she was shocked to find her hand still pointing to Clark and the ramifications of her words still rippling through her.

And through Clark.

He stared up at her, his expression arrested. Almost stricken. _He_ was certainly shocked. And that…that kind of made her sad. Or guilty. Because how could he _not_ know that he was a good man? Hadn’t she ever told him she respected him?

She had. She suddenly remembered it. They’d been sitting on a park bench, and she’d told him she respected and admired him…and didn’t love him. Couldn’t love him. Loved someone else, and by the way, would he mind go fetching that man so she could tell him?

Fast forward to now, and here she was, talking to the same man, _about_ the same other man, only this time…

Only this time, she was comparing Superman to Clark instead of the other way around. This time, it was Clark who was the example she was holding up.

She hadn’t even realized it. The words came like words always did for her—rapid and impulsive and from the heart. She really _meant_ these words. She really did think Clark was just as good a man, just as much of a hero—even if in a different way—as Superman.

And she wasn’t adding any qualifiers this time. No retractions, no corrections, no lies.

Clark’s eyes were wide, locked on her as if he didn’t even dare breathe in case it was a dream. As if he _wanted_ her to think that highly of him—not because he was vain or arrogant, no, those words didn’t apply to Clark at all. But because…because…because _he_ thought highly of _her_.

_Thought highly_. She inwardly snorted. That was one way of saying _cared for. Appreciated. Liked._

All of the above.

Her heart was in her throat, and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the look in Clark’s soft eyes, or the fact that she was coming to these realizations all right here, right now.

Jimmy’s interruption was the most timely he’d ever made. But it wasn’t enough to stop her thinking about that one, small moment.

About the fact that suddenly, without her even realizing it, Superman had some pretty dangerous competition.


	32. Chi Of Steel: Chen Chow

“So, how do you know Clark?” the woman asked me. She was obviously intelligent, just as obviously distracted. But this, I thought, was actually something she really wanted to know, for more than just a story’s benefit. I was a reporter too, and often felt the thrill of the chase for a good story, but even so, there was always a slight difference between business pursuit and personal interest.

I hid a smile and wondered how long I could tease Clark about this. He’d been telling me about Lois Lane, his partner, his best friend—“Of course, _you’re_ my friend too,” he always made sure to reiterate, which makes me think perhaps this Lois Lane is a jealous sort, to make him think that I would be jealous of his time—ever since we’d first started meeting up for coffee, and donuts, too, since Clark seems to always be hungry. I had heard whole stories pressed up against the brief statements, the casual admissions, the way this woman’s name cropped up, always, in every conversation.

It was fun to actually get to meet her. To see the beauty that made Clark’s eyes go hazy when he mentioned seeing her at a society function before he shook his head and moved on. To feel the energy crackling around her that always made a smile spring to Clark’s lips when he talked about trying to keep up with his partner. To hear the spark of strong presence in her voice, and connect it to Clark shrugging when I’d ask him how his best friend had convinced him to do whatever it was she had gotten him into this time.

But to hear this question and know that _she_ was interested in Clark and wanted to know more about him from me—a friend of his that might give her some insight into this man who spent almost all of his waking hours with her—ah, yes, this _was_ good. This would fill up quite a few weeks of breakfast meetings, and for a change, _I_ would be the one who got to know something Clark did not.

Maybe, though, I would not tease him for too long. It had been almost nine months since our first meeting, and I know he’s been carrying a torch for Lois Lane for even longer than that. In all truthfulness, I would have to admit that I had sometimes wondered if he’d ever get anywhere with this woman he could not give up on. It was a relief to know his feelings were not completely unreciprocated.

All the same, I could not tell her the truth. Clark had sworn me to secrecy.

We’d been assigned the same story, though for different papers—a big story for my Chinatown paper, a small one for the Daily Planet, and yet Clark had asked me after the press conference to meet with him so he could make certain he was familiar enough with the context. I still wasn’t sure what had happened exactly, when we did meet that evening just a few blocks over from Grandfather’s, but I know there were three men, there was a knife on the ground, a gunshot had sounded, and Clark’s suit coat had been ripped along the right sleeve. He never did let me look at how deeply the scratch must have been, but he’d assured me it was nothing.

I wasn’t sure I believed him.

He’d said it was nothing, and when I pressed him for details—sure that this could be a story that would get me a headline _and_ give some recognition to this ordinary hero—he admitted that he knew a bit about fighting. But he’d made me promise not to mention his name in my paper, or to tell anyone what happened.

And when I was attacked again, a few days later, Superman was there to save me. I read the Daily Planet as avidly as any reporter in Metropolis—I knew who had to have told the superhero that I might be in danger. Just a small street gang unhappy with the free publicity I had given them, but it did not escape my attention that Clark suddenly showed up at my optometrist’s, one day, and walked me home.

He was a true friend, always there until finally the last remnants of the gang had been put away or dispersed. He thanked me for it later, too, saying he was glad he met me. “Best optometrist I’ve ever had,” he’d said with that teasing gleam to his eye.

So I would be a true friend to him, too, and keep his secret for him. One story was not worth losing a friendship over.

“We go to the same optometrist,” I told Lois Lane, and smiled to see her look with away with feigned disinterest.

Yes, I would certainly enjoy my next breakfast with Clark.


	33. The Eyes Have It: Martha Kent

Your hands are clasped as tightly together as possible—not with Superman’s strength, maybe, but with all the force of a mother’s love. You’re doing your best to keep a polite smile fixed to your face while your precious boy stands less than a foot away, tense and scared and hurting. You want to shove Lois out of her own apartment, want to slam the door on the world, all so you can just pull your own son into your arms and soothe the tremor you’d heard in his voice—no matter how he tried to hide it—over the phone.

It’s always been hard, to hide the wonderful differences about Clark, to pretend you don’t know Superman more than just as a passing acquaintance made through Clark Kent, the reporter, and a passing encounter on the new subway during an emergency. Never as hard as this, though. Never as excruciating as the stilted act you are all forced to play out simply because of a change of clothes.

Jonathan is doing what he can, your helpmeet, your partner. You know he wants to see Clark—not the stranger standing in his Suit, awkward in his façade before his parents—as badly as you do, but he knows you need it more, so he tugs Lois to the door. His own fear and love and concern are like tangible presences against your back, more witnesses to this whole tedious scene, but all you can focus on are the inches separating you from Clark and the fact that Lois is at least outside her apartment now.

Then the door closes, and he is your boy, and you are holding him. Not quite as easy to do now as it once was, but that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters next to the feel of him in your arms, and the scent of him so near you—different from that scent only small babies have, as he had when he was young, even when you’d just pulled him from a spaceship—but familiar all the same.

You need that familiarity to counter the jarring strangeness of the way Clark stares so blankly in front of him.

Your boy! Your baby boy, so good and kind and full of his own faults, sure, but with such a good heart. You’ve loved him, you sometimes think, even before you met him, as if your fierce longing for children was just the premature love for a baby who had not yet arrived on Earth. As if you could ever not fly to his side when he is in trouble! As if there was any chance at all of you not coming to hold him and wish you had just a little bit of his invulnerability so you could shelter him and protect his vulnerable, compassionate heart.

“Oh, Clark, honey, of course we’re here!” you manage to say, words squeezed out through the vise around your heart and the lump in your throat. “You dad and I love you more than anything on this earth!”

And you do. You really, really do. If his people showed up right this instant and told you they were taking him away, you’d demand they take you too. You’d go with him without a second thought, and even though Jonathan loves the land that has been in his family for generations, you know he would go too.

Because this is your son. Because for all his strength, he is so fragile in some ways. So often in danger. So worth any sacrifice.

Clark, your son, your baby boy, and he is hurting, and there is nothing you can do. It is not a new feeling, but it is your least favorite. It writhes inside you with hated helplessness, and as tightly as you hold onto him, you cannot quite hold on tightly enough.

Then, the same miracle that has occurred countless times since shortly after you found this beautiful boy but one you never, ever take for granted. The miracle you think of when you watch news reports showing a red and blue blur flashing into the heart of every danger, facing every human tragedy, taking on the weight of the world. The miracle you feel and embrace and savor when Clark drops by for visits, to confide in you and ask for advice, or just to sit with you and talk of Lois and apple pie.

This man from another planet, this young man who you have held and loved, leans into you, and his entire body relaxes. Uncoils. And he tightens his own grip on you. So gently, because you know what he is capable of, but so incredibly tightly.

And your helplessness doesn’t matter anymore. Not with him hugging you. Not with him holding onto you. Because you know, no matter what happens, no matter what this world throws at him, he will never let you go.


	34. The Phoenix: Clark Kent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been way too long, but in rewatching the show, I've finally made it to where I'd left off on these Quotables! So, hopefully they're not too rusty! Let me know what you think!

It’s for the best, he tells himself. Of course it is (and why had he ever let himself think different?). All the work of gearing up his courage, screwing up his suicidal tendencies, just to ask her out on one date (and not to backpedal or equivocate during even _one_ of the many opportunities she gave him), and for what? So she could scramble awkwardly in her search for the way to let him down ( _again_ ) without hurting him? So he could listen to her tell him that he was her _best friend_ and she didn’t want anything to risk that (especially not a date she’s never given him any reason to think she _wants_ )?

So he can have his heart broken all over again?

No, best just to let this go. Just cut his losses, appreciate the close relationship he already does have with her, and give up all the dreams he’s been carrying around for far too long.

Besides, better for _him_ to do it than to have to listen to whatever pitying, rambling speech she has halfway prepared. (Better to be able to tell himself it was just timing, and coincidence, and an ill-timed assignment than that he’s just not someone she feels ‘that way’ about.)

But she doesn’t take it, this golden opportunity he has given her to back out of the date she didn’t want and only agreed to after he all but cornered her on it. Her eyes cloud over and her lips purse in what he could almost swear is a pout.

As if she doesn’t want the out.

As if…she wants the date?

He can hardly dare to believe it. Sure, he’s tried his best to keep his calm, to make her think this is as casual as she wants it (to not do anything at all to let her see the weight of his all-encompassing, apparently immortal love for her, because the last time he let it out into the open, it was too much). He’s waited until she looked at him with a shining look in her eyes that rivaled the expression she wears around Superman (or used to wear, because lately, she’s seemed to see Superman more as an equal than a superior). Waited until she looked absolutely broken when Clark walked back to life and health after his run-in with those cloned gangsters, and she refused to let him out of her sight for days afterward. Waited until she realized Superman isn’t perfect and admitted she’ll do anything for Clark.

Waited until he didn’t think the time could ever be any more right.

But she’d paused. Hesitated. Backtracked.

But then, doesn’t Lois always do that when she’s scared but hopeful? She’s so unafraid of risking her life, but so cautious with her heart (and he’s the opposite, isn’t he, so maybe that’s why it’s taken them almost two years to get to this point).

“Well,” she says, slowly, hesitantly, “what if we say this is our _almost_ first date?”

And he smiles. Smiles, and breathes, and thinks that maybe, finally, this is his time.

_Their_ time.

Maybe she can finally love him.


	35. Top Copy: Jonathan Kent

He had a nightmare, one that had haunted him for almost three decades. He used to see it every time he closed his eyes. He saw it in the dark earth he overturned in preparation for planting. He saw it etched on the underside of the tractor when he went on his back to fix its latest trouble. He saw it, maybe most of all, flickering between the channels of the television, smeared along the bright colors and flashy stories.

He heard it, screaming at him, layered through the polite greetings and small talk and friendly conversations with folks in town. He heard it before Martha hushed it, matter-of-factly, by telling him not to worry. He heard it, maybe most of all, in every phone call and visit from his son.

It dogged his steps, persistent and pervasive. A nightmare that could all too easily become reality.

After all, his _dream_ had come true.

Before the nightmare, before the fear, he’d held tightly to a wish, so casual and innocent in high school, enduring and steadfast once he met Martha, so close and seemingly attainable when they’d first been married.

A family. Little children running around underfoot, tripping him up and looking up with big eyes, and calling him _Dad_. He’d never told Martha, but he’d imagined, maybe most of all, a little girl with his wife’s sparkling eyes, and a little hand that would wrap around his fingers so trustingly. A child to call his own.

A dream that had, eventually, become impossible.

Until it wasn’t. A ship fell from the sky and a baby nestled in Martha’s arms and looked up at him with big brown eyes, and wrapped a tiny fist around Jonathan’s thumb.

And suddenly, just like that, his dream had come true.

Thousands, surely, childless couples, all yearning for this same simple dream, but only he and Martha were granted such a miracle, such a _blessing_ , as Clark.

And that was when the nightmare had crawled its way, scratching and poisoned, into his every restless night, countless waking moments. So strong, those first several years, that he could hardly breathe through the fear. Easing into a soft caution until once more exploding into horrible detail when all of Clark’s extraordinary abilities had begun to blossom. Steady, humming always in the background while his son traveled the world, only a few steps ahead of suspicion and discovery. Tamped down with all the willpower he could muster when Clark flew, brilliant and daring, straight into the arms of a reporter and the view of the whole world. Controlled, dimmed, a buzz that vibrated through his bones with all the familiarity of the thrum of that old tractor.

A nightmare he couldn’t escape, ever, because Clark was special and amazing and _super_. Because the world would always fear things it couldn’t control. Because his boy was so innocent and hopeful and _good_ that he would never think to be careful, would never expect bad things to happen, until Jonathan warned him.

And it was all coming true, wasn’t it? Just like his nightmare.

A crowd of reporters, hungry for blood, glutted on the news story Diana Stride had released, all staring at Clark and ready to pounce. No more dinners at home or quiet phone calls or Kerth awards showed off with a bashful smile and a gleam in his eye. No more dreams of a woman to love him and a future following in his parents’ footsteps.

Just paranoia and suspicion. Expectation and accusation. Always hiding, always just a step ahead—until he wasn’t. Until he was laid low by that blasted green rock and spread out on an examining table somewhere miles below ground, away from the sun. Alone and helpless—and so betrayed because Clark never believed anything but the best in people.

Jonathan took in a shuddering breath and tried to stop his hands from shaking. It was all happening down there, just below him, his son gone out to face the firing squad, and now there were only these few lights standing between him and the reality of his nightmare.

“Oh boy, what am I doing playing with lasers? I’m a farmer.”

Just a farmer. Just a man who had a dream that came true. Just a boy from a town no one even knew existed who grew up and got his wish cast down at him from the heavens.

But still Jonathan steadied his hands, and he played with the lasers, and he fought his fear.

Because he was, after all, more than a farmer.

He was a father.


	36. Return Of The Prankster: Lois Lane

Clark had been a lot of things to her over the past two years, and she’d called him a lot of things to his face. He’d gone from an inexperienced rookie foisted off on her to a partner, a friend, a best friend, and now to the something more they were hovering on the edge of. He’d listened to her name him everything from a hack to a brother to a traitor—to the best, perfect, a good man just like Superman. As uncertain as things were between them right now, there was no getting around the fact that he’d run the whole gamut of good and bad in her life—every one an extreme because he never did anything halfway and she could never be apathetic toward him.

But truthfully—way more truthfully than she ever liked to get since she knew it never cast her in a good light—as much as Lois knew she needed Clark in her life in some form and fashion…she’d never really given him his due as a reporter.

Oh, sure, she loved working with him. She loved when he finished her sentences or managed to bring all her cascading thoughts together with one statement, or how he made even the most routine stakeout fun. She enjoyed coming out of the elevator and seeing him already looking up toward her with a smile, ready to hand her a cup of coffee and occasionally a croissant or donut. She wouldn’t trade him for any other partner in the world.

But she was the one with more experience. She was the one who knew this city like the back of her hand, and had more useful sources. Her name was first on the byline. And just remembering her reaction to his Kerth award nomination made her cringe.

Today, she’d even wondered, with horror, if she really saw Clark as her partner, or just as backup. Emotional support. A sounding board. And yes, she knew Clark was more than willing to be all those things for her, but he was _more_ , too. Wasn’t he?

Yes. He was, she decided firmly.

He was a reporter she admired. She even envied his writing style, that prose that could make anyone and everyone care about the facts he reported so concisely. She did think he’d deserved that Kerth, even if she had never quite got around to telling him so. And there were a lot of their stories she’d never have been able to successfully pull in without Clark right there beside her. Which was why, when she was in the room with the President of the United States sitting across from her and a clock ticking down in her head, she’d taken a chance…and asked the question Clark had suggested.

“Take a lesson, boys and girls,” Perry said loudly, proud and approving. “This is the mark of a seasoned reporter—someone who can get her subject to open up and talk freely.”

Someone, Lois added silently, with a very, very good partner.


	37. Lucky Leon: Perry White

“It was a really _great_ date, and now I’m-I’m completely panicked, and I have no idea what to do next!”

She’s going to cry. Lois Lane, star reporter, three-time Kerth Award winner, hard-nosed journalist…and the waterworks are coming, and Perry is caught totally flat-footed. He’d been prepared for anger. He’d geared himself up for volatile explosions as bad as Pompeii, for eruptions that spewed lava and left behind ash. He’d gotten all ready for the return of Clark’s aloofness, that numb distance he’d employed like armor during those terrible days after the Planet’s temporary destruction and Lois’s engagement to Luthor.

All that preparation…for nothing.

Perry holds his hands up uselessly in the air, mouth gaping soundlessly. This isn’t a volcano. It’s a rainstorm—and not even one with hurricane-force gales or crackling lightning. Just soft showers and mournful thunder loud enough to make the faint-hearted curl up under a blanket. This was nothing like the Lois Lane Perry knew and had based all his plans around.

And Clark?

Well, Perry could only imagine how lost _he_ was feeling when Perry himself couldn’t spot even a flicker of a roadmap anywhere nearby.

So, caught in the steam of his own interrupted rant, Perry did what he could. He opened his arms and tried to think of something comforting to say—something besides the incredulous demand at where the Lois Lane he’d hired and taken under his wing had disappeared to! But even as Lois filled his arms in a clumsy embrace, he came up empty, all his words washed away in the storm.

A really great date. Which, coming from Lois, Perry figured, meant Clark had somehow just about achieved perfection. So of course here they were. Perry felt like calling Clark into the office just so he could chew him out for not arranging even the hint of a foible. The state of his newsroom aside, didn’t that young man realize he was setting impossible precedents for men everywhere?

But then, Perry just hoped Clark would be _around_ for him to call into his office. Because anger and distance? Well, Perry already knew from loads of past experience that the Planet—and his best reporting team—could survive that. For all his grumbling to Jimmy, he would bet everything he had on them emerging on the other side of a volcanic debacle with a shaken friendship and a strengthened partnership.

But tears? Tears and hugs and the sight over Lois’s shaking shoulder of Clark slinking out of the elevator with despair the very opposite of _numb_ written all over him?

Perry didn’t know what would come of _this_. All he did know was that it was almost enough to make him cry himself.


	38. Resurrection: Clark Kent/Superman

It’s happening again, right in front of your eyes. Just like before except worse, because last time she didn’t know how you felt until later, but this time she knows and it still doesn’t seem to matter. Like history repeating itself irrespective of every step forward you’ve taken, of every landmark you’ve erected to commemorate her progress toward you. Of every scar your heart has forced itself to heal over.

Your scarred and beating heart feels like it’s caught in a vise, like your lungs are filled with vacuum, like you’re trapped in the cold of space. You blink and you’re standing in an alleyway next to the body of a man with Lex’s bullet in his heart while Luthor tells you that you weren’t fast enough and Lois hangs off his arm. It seems so real, so immediate, that for a moment the cemetery turns dark and Scardino actually morphs into Luthor. He has his hand on Lois’s arm, just like Luthor did.

It’s going to happen again, and you’re suddenly terrified that there’s not a single thing you can do to stop it. Maybe there never was. Maybe this is the way it will always go: you will be there for Lois to cry on, to laugh with, to work beside…but you will never be the man she kisses, or goes home with, or makes a life beside.

But you’ve been so _careful!_ you want to cry, to rage against the unfairness. You lied so you could be there while she healed from the wounds Luthor inflicted. You waited while she found her balance as a partner rather than a competitor. You discovered that she mourned the death of Clark and that she would keep Superman’s secrets even when it made her feel guilty. You rejoiced when she compared you-Clark to you-Superman and for the first time did not find you wanting. You began to really let yourself hope when she admitted she’d do anything for Clark, when she stayed by Superman’s sickbed without wavering. You let yourself begin to feel confident when she didn’t let either of you give up on your first date, when she kissed you for the very first time without disguise or excuse or farewell as reason—when she lost herself in that kiss and gave herself over to you.

And then you blinked to clear the tears—and the guilt and the shame and the fear inspired by Mayson’s face when she saw Superman beneath Clark Kent…and it all disappeared.

The closeness. The smiles. The willingness. The spark of something more finally arrived for _you_. The kiss.

Even the friendship you thought you could depend on.

There, then gone, and now you stand removed from her—wearing a cape, even—and still she has eyes only for this man. This agent with his leers and his smirks and his casual put-downs for mild-mannered Clark that she doesn’t even seem to notice, and it’s like a recurring nightmare you will never be able to escape.

She asked if she was yesterday’s news, and you thought it was _her_ insecurities rising up, but now you see the truth.

_You’re_ the one who’s old and stale. You’re the one who’s been left behind. You’re _always_ the one she’ll shrug aside, and maybe she didn’t take the out you offered from your first date, but she obviously wants one now.

“Well,” you say, and you _try_ not to sound bitter. Not to sound as bereft and betrayed as you feel. “I guess you don’t need me.”

The final nail in your coffin as you fly from the cemetery is that Lois says nothing to refute it.

You blink again, and you’re alone.

You’ll always be alone.


	39. Tempus Fugitive: HG Wells

“…Utopia was founded by Superman’s descendants.”

It’s only after he’s said it that he realizes. Too much, too much, of course, and this is, no doubt, why conversation should only be attempted over tea, when there are teacups and sugar cubes and scones to keep one from saying things better left unsaid. Oh, when will he learn? First, all his braggadocio about his time machine which led to those _horrible_ jeers among his peers in the club, then his foray into the utopian future where—or should he, perhaps, say _when_ —the locals, so to speak, seemed none too happy to see him—save for Tempus, of course, the one saving point of his visit there; well, aside from that absolutely _wonderful_ Founders Museum—and now, here, in front of the most _important_ people, once again, he has stuck, as they say, his foot in it.

He only meant to give these two something to look forward to, some piece of the hope that they perpetuate forward to all mankind. Only meant to help them out—just a bit—on their long road to perfect happiness. But, ah, now Miss Lane is quite out of sorts with him, and poor, poor Mr. Kent is staring at him with an expression Herbert really wishes he couldn’t interpret.

But alas, he _is_ , after all, a novelist, and novelists are primarily observers of the human condition, so he _can_ , all too easily, decipher the expression causing Mr. Kent to stare and gape and lean so far forward he would be in danger of stumbling if Herbert didn’t know that the young man could fly.

One sentence—not even a complete sentence, just a piece of one—and this Superman in disguise goes from alert and concerned to…to hope and anguish and shock and a longing so powerful Herbert begins to conjecture a theory that perhaps Superman’s emotions are catching. That the reason he can inspire such hope is because he simply radiates it outward from himself, and that Miss Lane grew to trust him because _he_ trusted her so much and she could not but help to reflect it back on him. That his yearning is so powerful it’s really not Herbert’s fault that his steps hurry and he senses the awful, overwhelming urge to rush to his time machine and input the future’s date once more and _flash_ this young man to a day where he can look out on the world and see his descendants zipping all about in bold primary colors and heroic nobility.

If only.

But Herbert spent _quite_ a bit of time in that utopian ideal, long enough to devour every book and museum exhibit about these two young people before him, and he is quite aware that this is _not_ in Superman’s power. Besides, he would not spoil their journey for anything, not even for his well-meaning but ill-advised wish to allay the vast worry and desperate curiosity beaming out from Mr. Kent.

He’ll know. One day. One day, he’ll see his Miss Lane in the white dress worn just for him, and they’ll make their home together, and they will, after some sorrow and numerous trials and far too many close calls for Herbert’s peace of mind, eventually hold a tiny baby in their arms. Then, it will all be worth it, every painful step that led them to that point.

But with a quick glance once more to Mr. Kent, Herbert doesn’t think he has ever been quite so grateful to own a time machine. In this moment, he thinks Clark Kent would trade all of his actual powers for the chance to skip out on all the bad moments. To go straight to those idyllic days in the future. To know, once and for all, that he is not alone.

Perhaps, Herbert thinks, he will visit there next.


End file.
